Equifest 2016

(Chris) Hello and welcome to Horsin’ Around. I’m Dr. Chris Blevins at Kansas State University Veterinary Health Center. Today at Equifest 2016 with Ann White. She is the Manager of Equifest this year, so welcome Ann. (Ann) Thank you Chris. (Chris) I think this is a very exciting event. We’re at a new place. We’re in Topeka at the Expocentre. It’s almost hard to even walk around with the amount of people here. It is just amazing. Seems like it’s great flow. What is kind of your take on how it’s going so far this year here at Equifest? (Ann) It’s been very, very exciting. We are having a great time. The transition that we had to make from Wichita to here has been incredibly smooth. The community and Topeka, Visit Topeka, all the people in this town have really embraced us. And the volunteer work, the committee, the Horse Council, everybody involved has put in hours and hours to make this happen, in really kind of a short amount of time. (Chris) Yea, I think that you do a great job of managing people and just the amount of people that you have working on different things that makes everything go very smoothly And so I want to definitely commend you on that aspect. (Ann) Well, I always say it takes a village and I have the best village in the world. And certainly people just rise to the occasion and that’s the only reason I do this, is because the people that help and volunteer and work are so good. It’s so much fun to be around those kind of people. (Chris) Now I don’t know if a lot of people know this, but you actually had that vision for Kansas a while ago and here we are full circle and you’re helping manage it. (Ann) I did. Twenty years ago I sat in a meeting and said, “I think we should have a horse fair.” And I raised my hand and they said, “Well Ann, then why don’t you go ahead and do that.” So, went to one out east and kind of saw how it was done and came home and it’s been happening ever since. (Chris) Yea, it’s grown to this. Well, let’s talk about next year, 2017 what are, we’re gonna be here I would assume, but what’s going on in 2017? (Ann) In 2017 we’ll be back here at the Kansas Expocentre. The date will move up a week, so next year it will be 17-18-19 of February. It is our 20th year anniversary. We’ve already contracted Chris Cox. We have a lot of exciting things planned for next year and so you’ll want to keep posted. Keep watching us on Facebook and Twitter and go to the website as the things get solidified for what we’re going to do next year. (Chris) That is great. It’s always an exciting time. People love coming and doing something in February. It’s kind of like getting everything ready for the rest of the season. Appreciate everything you do out here. (Ann) Thank you very much. (Chris) Thank you Ann. I’m Dr. Chris Blevins for Horsin’ Around and we’ll see you around.